


Play Pretend

by SandrC



Series: I Wish to Lodge a Complaint [4]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Gen, Im some kinda way about that last ep y'all, aubrey - Freeform, but like, darling - Freeform, fucking staHP, im gonna keep on keeping on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-29 01:31:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16253894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandrC/pseuds/SandrC
Summary: Aubrey Little is really good at pretend. She's been pretending since she was very little.One of these days, hopefully, she won't have to.





	Play Pretend

**Author's Note:**

> Pain? Pain.
> 
> I'm love Aubrey. Travis, you mad man you, hitting me in the feels.
> 
> Anyway, have this shit. Love it or dont, it's up to you.  
> *yeets it at y'all*

Aubrey has always been good at pretending. Ever since she was very very little, she's been the best person she knew at playing pretend. Sometimes it was hard to tell what wasn't pretend any more.

When Aubrey was young, _all_ the way until she was about twelve or thirteen, she pretended she was Albert Little, only son of Leticia and Trevor Little. She would play with the little boys, play _like_  the little boys, tough and rough and tumble, with dirt and kicking and childhood swears. She never said she was a _she_. She always played the good little boy in pressed dress pants on Sunday services, smiling when the grandmas called her handsome and a lady killer. The good little son, good grades, good teeth, good health. Albert, the best of boys, a modern model of a young man at his best.

When Aubrey was fifteen, she pretended she was straight for about three years. Back then, even in the heyday of Gay-Straight Alliance clubs at school, a young black woman with foreign roots and an "attitude" with no curves and a "mannish" look was bad enough. She _couldn't_ be gay then. And even so, she couldn't really be _bisexual_ for another three years. So for three years, the last of her high school career, she was Aubrey Little, the straight girl who sometimes kissed her gal friends too closely, who joked about Sigourney Weaver and Dame Julie Andrews. She was the straight black girl who could do a keg stand and hooked up with Jason in the closet of a party, but really she just talked with Jason, wondered if it would ever be okay to be fat and gay and wondered if being black and gay would ever be more than some bullshit White Person fetish. And when those three years ended, the day of graduation, she kissed her girlfriend, set her cap on fire, and gave the whole student body something to talk about for a while.

When Aubrey was nineteen, she pretended that everything was okay. That her world hadn't ended that day, when her mother was let into the ground and her father spoke to her for the last time. She got really good at pretending that the fire had started on the first floor. She got good at pretending that no one had been in the house save for her and her family. She got really good at pretending that her world was whole and she wasn't running and hiding and that maybe even she had a home to return to. Pretending got hard but she did it.

When Aubrey was in her mid-twenties, she pretended that having magic was the coolest goddamn thing in the world. That being able to shoot fire from her fingers was so goddamn rad and that having a vampire girlfriend was _super_ fucking cool. _Most_ of that was true. _Most_ of it wasn't pretend. But then there was the threat of death. The fear of consumption. Ruining someone's life. Hurting them. But it's _fine_. Magic is _real fucking cool_. It's _all good_.

The night she returned from the fateful moment in Silvane, after being more lost than anything before, Aubrey Little pretended she was the same as when she left. That she didn't have a chunk of the core of an alien planet instead of an actual eyeball in one of her eye sockets. That she still had two hazel eyes like her mother, whom she had _no_ hand in the death of. That she hadn't done something _irreversible_.

Aubrey Little is _really_ good at pretend. She's been pretending since she was very little. One of these days, hopefully, she won't _have_ to.

Until then, sunglasses are cool, _right_?

It's _fine_.

_It's fine._


End file.
